Beginner guide to counters in AoE2 

Welcome friend :)

Youre only now playing it?

Nice

@@fatratty2876 is it alot different?

@@thorkildhammersth2564 it has new civilizations, new campaigns, a brand new tutorial with tips to improve your game, some older campaigns have been reworked, and it has some life improvement tweaks here and there but essentially it is the same game. Oh, and it also looks nicer.

Good luck during this whole pandemic

So when are you going to bring back newer combo counters with using the new map selector mini-map tools?

Lol

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Nice catch, this made my day

He slid into that boar like I want to slide into your Dms

That's what we all really came for.

I still have my original AoE2 booklet with conquerors expansion!! If I manage to get it signed by SoTL that's gotta be worth a least a few hundred thousand Canadian dollars eh??

I remember that I got a used copy of the game, so it didn’t come with the manual. So I found the manual (I honestly forget where I got it from, 20 years later) and printed it out myself

I have a copy of that from the AoC combo pack from ~2004 I'll scan it an post it if anyone is interested. Doesn't have the new expansion units though.

I still have the box set for the original AoE 2. It's not a book its like a big brochure thats like a print screen of the tech tree, then the other side shows counters and more info.

@@davidbell-yt Would also have a ton of inaccurate information as we've had a bunch of balance changes since DE.

That, and smallpox decimated the only advantage the Aztecs had (sheer numbers).

Spanish bonus against american civs have to be smallpox. That was the major factor in spain victory over aztecs

Well, since in-game Jaguar Warriors absolutely murder any infantry regardless of their weapon, and Eagles have a spear instead, I don't think it's a good explanation.

Maybe inferior to steel swords but have you seen those obsidian blades against buildings tho?

@@martytu20 Don't forget the extensive use of the armees of all the Aztecs' ennemies (as shown in moctezuma's campaign).

I am noob

mad lad

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"sec" "k go?" "1"

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I love that SotL put in that glitch 😂 Would be fun to end every video with a glitch 11

They are always a joke

Yes

I'll give you the resumed version. What do siege towers counter? nothing... What counters siege towers? everything

I guess you could argue siege towers counters walls in some sense :P

@@GummieI Yes until the guys put another wall behind xd

@STORM LORD *dadada*

So do incan villagers

S A N T I A G O !

Even cobras

Except Teutonic Knights.

kinda makes them predictable though.....

*camelback

@@nvmtt what about team games

yea, but dont use genitours against mass pikemen...

@@hugoboss3707 The Genitours are pretty much big horse skirmishers to protect your expensive gold army

I'm glad I'm not the only one

Same

Haha me too

Do you have hotkeys for all build commands and unit creation? Also a hotkey to go to your towncenter is a must!

I've played for at least 6 years before leaving the game aside, i never put any effort into competitive play tho, so i never had to improve anyway

Rts genre is dead

But aoe2 is alive

I'm slowing getting buddies that have been disappointed with recent rts into aoe2, and they're realizing that the other games barely scratch the surface lol

Now how does it makes sense that skirmishers have a minimum range despite using spears which could be used as a melee weapon while archers can shoot point blank?

@@Herlgar It does! The wood on their spear is not strong enough for a hand to hand combat! It's lighter so it's easier to throw it!

@@Herlgar I assume because it's a javelin and not a spear meant to be used for melee combat

The Skirmisher is one of the most ahistorical units in AoE2. Armies in the Feudal age routinely fought in shield walls with spears as their main melee weapon, but there is no analogue for that soldier in AoE2. No medieval army ran around with javelins and big shield combos as a counter to archers. It appears that the devs wanted to provide players a visual cue for what kind of armor a unit had, and they decided that body armor meant Melee armor and shield meant pierce armor (which is why the huskarl has a big shield). The skirmisher was created for gameplay reasons so it doesn't make a whole lot of real world sense.

@@helmutthat8331 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javelin

I still do it

Tbf even the developers themselves admitted to do the same thing in the past

I was surprised by the amount of trash when I started playing multi player. That, or players that use the most expensive unit they can get

@@martijn9568 Yes it's crazy! If you pick vikings and go Berserk + Skirm and siege ram in late game most player strugle against that (berserks being extremely good vs trash, champion and chavelier / paladin with equal resources) and skirms being good vs archers and handcannons + siege ram to push and tank the HC's.

@@pepijngeorge9959 I was once as Turks against a Mayan player on black forest. He rushed me mid feudal, I countered him by just going Man-at-arms and skirmishers. After that he went completely on the defensive and only made skirmishers. I was like, well I'm Persians so I better wait to imperial and made some defences for if he decided to attack. For my attack I decided that going full gunpowder probably would be the best choice, given that I'm Persians. Let's just say his defenses and everything there aft er r just melted, because he couldn't do anything with his skirmishers and castles against my bombard canons and hand cannoneers

I think this is why it's important to keep your "gold" units like archers, onagers or knights alive until the Feudal age by either garrisoning them or monk healing. Also champions, because of their speed, is extremely vulnerable against towers and castles

unless,wait for it.

@@meifray you are the mongols

seeing this reference in the video made me very happy

The mongols.mp4 plays

@@meifray legendary

Just watch pros But realy try to get relics and raid is huge

It just depends on what your opponent is spamming but getting a nice ball of skirms and hussar is a good start, halbs are more situational imo and usually less important

Build 20-30 production buildings and maintain around 120 vills. And try to add in rams or other types of siege. Or if it is a hussar heavy army try to raid eco

If you have a bit of gold and you know how to micro mangonels, a few mangonels + a lot of halbs is really good, because in trash war the only counter to mangonels (with an escort, of course) is light cav, which is hard countered by your halbs. If you don't have gold, skirm + halb is a good combination with only one weakness: mangonels. If you are really bad in micro, I would go full light cav, because with the mobility you can dodge the only big counter to it in trash war: halbs. Also it's really good for raids, which can help you to finish the game. If you are really really bad, you can go full skirm. If your enemy only sends you trash units, you will win if you have enough of them. But a single mangonel or ram and your army can be defeated... In any case, it really depends of your civ, because a trash war it's hundreds of units against hundreds of enemy. A single bonus or a missing tech will be huge. Also in trash war micro is really important. A good mangonel shot and you lose your army, if you hit and run with skirm you can destroy hundreds of halbs, etc...

Use your Gold for Siege (Onagers are good, but Rams also work against castles etc) and then spam mostly halbs for defense and hussars to attack the opponents eco... If you happen to have enough Gold to get like 40 Champions (400 Gold, but you still need upgrades), thats also a great way to break through your opponents defense

I'm here in this specific part of the game barely got my counters down but am learning specifics like what unit is good in long term vs short term scenarios for example aztec pikes are good vs halbs but not against paladins...

and sometimes a group of Frank Paladins can just brute force through some Halbs and Goth just pile corpses on everything regardless of counter

I don't think you need to get to feudal in under 10 min. Most people aim for 11-12 min for most feudal aggression Also Spirit made a video on advance times. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N6tUG-aOua8.html

Learning some basic build orders will get you a long way in that respect, try and just practice using civs with a generic Dark Age to get used to how that feels (Byzantines, Saracens, Turks, Vikings, Magyars, Portuguese, Burmese, Malay, Vietnamese, Bulgarians & Cumans).

@@eccentrichorse11i watched that video, and i know that! However i am trying to practice getting into feudal age in less than 10 min.

Can you please critique the video? If you're good at countering, you might be good at suggesting other stuff he might have missed on

@@DanielSultana oh there is no need to critique it. It is all good information. When it comes to unit interactions and behind the scenes numbers and cost analysis there is no one even close to as good as spirit of the law. The only stuff he "missed " was the stuff that was intentionally omitted for his next video on unique units so watch that as well. If you want more generalized advice on strategy vs unit compositions you will have to ask, each possible scenario has a different answer and usually multiple when you factor in civs

You got it backwards. Skip to 3:00 if you want clear evidence that light cav counter skirms.

@@kelanriley2940 Mate that was sarcasm. I play the game at a pretty high level :) Also damn it's been three years

@@AgeofNoob Lol gotcha. I didn't catch that, the face could've given that one away :D.

Yeah monks require micromanagement, sicne they do not have command to automatically start converting whatever unit is in the range. Theoretically they should of made that option for monks, just like attack stance on war units. .

Are you single?

Their slowlyness makes them real frustrating if i ask me.

yea....... no.

I would argue their slow speed makes them the least fun cavalry unit to use. I guess it's subjective.

Lol u guys are not getting the joke🤣🤣

I'm one of those people, and I must say, this Game is fascinating

@@caroswolf286 yeah is a very interesting system, now is overshadowed by the MOBAS and character based combat systems but this one is the holy grail for strategy games

Yes, AOE is an extremely well made RTS. I have never played any other RTS though to compare. Which ones are good?

@@devesh7582 Spellforce 3, Rise of Nations, Age of Mythology, Stronghold Crusader 2, Halo Wars 1 and 2 (1 was made by Ensemble Studios, the guys behind AoE)

@@lbsl7778 One does not simply mention all kinds of RTS games (even Halo Wars.........) WITHOUT bringing up STARCRAFT! The most successfull RTS Game ever made. Yes I agree both (Starcraft 1 and 2) can be daunting for gamers new to the genre but they are easily as good if not better then AOE. That I guess comes down to personal taste.

Except there's only 2 civs that even try to go cav archer. Mongols and huns. And cost effective goes out the window there

sotl means beginners think its important if you have a 15 or 14 minute fc time. thats false.

Can confirm, I know most of the counters but I can't micro for shit, can't focus well on multiple things, and my TC is more idle than I'd like

I think there's two "flavours" of noob. There's the type one "self-taught" noob, who's maybe played a bunch of campaigns and AI games, but is in your position - all knowledge, no execution. Then there's the type two "lurker" noob, who got into the game on videos like SotL and high-level gameplay commentary - and at the level, your opening execution is given more focus since counters and stuff are assumed, so they're all execution, no knowledge. Both have a lot to learn, and this video caters to helping the type two noobs actually do something with their fast castle advantage.

Kern you just described my average game after 20 years playing this game regularly

@@OpusMagnoCards it hurts, my man, it really does

The shield isn't THAT big though

@@ericolens3 I know it's Onager. But I like the word "Ownager" better, since it reflects their effectiveness vs. low level players. It sounds cooler too.

@@ericolens3 Pwnager

@@ericolens3 Ownager

Doesn't work, realistically. They'll just send in a few halbs to poke the rams. Doesn't matter if they lose the pikes, you'll lose either your swordsmen to the archers when they ungarrison to handle the pikes, or the rams to the pikes while the archers walk away. *Definitely* doesn't work against cavalry archers. Even if they let them get right up to them, they can just walk away again.

Celt is more to infantry unit. So cavalry civ Will be good counter to them, like Franks or spanish for example

For Mayans you should use archers since they are cheap and have more attack points. Use eagle warriors to counter onagers.

@@mighty7494 cavalry is bad vs infantry civs man they just go halb

Weird, you definitely had the speed advantage to avoid Onager fire, destroy their siege with your Eagles and deal with the Champions with your plumes. I think that matchup really depends on your micromanagement ability.

@@Latios93 Yep. Sounds like he had an okay composition, but screwed up the micro

I got 23

That's what she said

Lithuanians

@@hugoboss3707 thanks

Cataphracts lose to Paladins and Cavaliers. They're pretty strong, but they cost a lot, as well as the elite and trample damage techs. As far as a same cost contest, heavy cav will clean them up. Plus, heavy cav have generally better stats except for the resistance to bonus damage.

Me 😭

What do you mean? If I close the game, I won't lose any point?

@@uguraydin5628 It's a joke. The implication is that if you "disconnect" then you didn't "lose" by being outplayed by a superior opponent.

The only thing left for you to do now is beating TheViper

He said he will do a seperate video, oh and.... its whole not hole

Charles Butt That’s right, didn’t noticed